We had a pretty good Easter this year. We were supposed to do an Easter Egg Hunt, but it got rescheduled and by that time it just wasn’t convenient for us to go. I don’t think Damien missed out on too much though.













We had a pretty good Easter this year. We were supposed to do an Easter Egg Hunt, but it got rescheduled and by that time it just wasn’t convenient for us to go. I don’t think Damien missed out on too much though.
Trick-or-Treating this year was a lot ofย fun. We all dressed up as Ninja Turtles and it was only a little bit chilly.
The last two weeks have gone by so quickly! It was a great, relaxing visit. I miss everyone…
Damien spent a lot of time with Grandpa Hanks this trip and had a lot of fun together ๐
Uncle David works the nightshift at his job, but did come over a lot of evenings to hang out with us.
Since Damien and I were leaving on the 4th of July, we decided to set off some fireworks a little early. This was Damien’s first experience with them and he was a little bit nervous at the ones that were loud.
As I said, it went by so quickly. I did attend my 10 year high school reunion dinner and it was so great to see people! The attendance wasn’t the best so there were quite a few people I didn’t get to see at all. I’m actually kicking myself for not taking ANY pictures. What’s with that? And speaking of pictures, I also didn’t get a family photo this trip either! I must be slipping…
The trip back home to Virginia went great. The ONLY issue was that Damien’s carseat didn’t come in with our flight so the airline lent us a carseat so that we could drive home. The carseat was then delivered to my home later that evening so it wasn’t too much of a hassle.
On Saturday Damien and I picked up Katrina from the Yorktown Pet Lodge where she was staying while we were out of town. The lady there said that Katrina was super friendly and there weren’t any problems. I was a little bit nervous that once we got her home that maybe she would be standoff-ish, but she was completely fine.
Okay for the exciting news first–Scott got an assignment to Langley and it looks like he’ll be here in August!!! He already posted it to Facebook so people probably already know. This has just made my night. So happy ๐ Of course I can’t mention it to Damien. I made the mistake of saying something about visiting Grandma and Grandpa and he’s been hasseling me to go to the airport and droning on about how much he misses them (and Uncle David too!). I just keep thinking “I know! I want to go right now too!”
Alright, so we just had a four-day weekend for Memorial Day and I discovered a new park (Huntington Park) that’s only a 20 min drive away from my house, is free and has a beach. YESSSS! Now the only downside is all the people. The park was pretty spectacular. It was pirate themed.
Scott spent his Memorial Day weekend in Venice with four other friends/coworkers. Sounds like he had fun sightseeing.
We didn’t do very much for Easter this year. I was going to take Damien to an Easter egg hunt event, but it ended up raining most of Saturday so I didn’t feel like leaving the house. Heย got his Easter basket today that Scott helped pick out. Damien was only concerned about the candy and asked me for it throughout the day. We colored in his new coloring book and he liked his balloon thing, although it wasn’t as cool as I thought it was going to be. ย Tomorrow Scott and I are back at work after having a couple of weeks off. Not looking forward to that…
At the beginning of the month I took Damien to the Bounce House for a little fun and exercise. He was really scared at first and wouldn’t touch anything, but he eventually warmed up and had a good time. The place had quite a few of the inflatable play areas so it’s a nice option on really cold days.
So I’ll now explain the title of the post. Over the last couple months, Damien has been really acting up at daycare. I even had to go pick him up because he injured another kid. Everyday when I go to pick him up, it’s not a matter of whether he hit or pushed the other children, but rather how bad it was. I’m sure he’d act the same at home but I don’t have any other kids for him to beat up on. Not that he’s even doing it out of anger, but more like an impulse. He also has a difficult time listening, especially the first time a direction is given to him. I discussed him with the program director of the daycare and her observation is that his behavior is not typical of someone his age. It may be thought that he’s acting like a boy. Well just as an example, his room has 10 boys (aside from Damien), and only 5 girls. The other boys don’t act like Damien. It’s also known that Damien is incredibly active and the teachers have to watch him closer than the other kids. Anyways, I made a doctor’s appointment for Damien that will hopefully answer some questions. One thing that was mentioned to me was the possibility that milk and/or wheat products could be causing these behavioral issues. Wouldn’t that be something? I’m at least going to experiment with it and see if it yields any results. Fun stuff.
And lastly, Scott was a very sweet husband and sent me some beautiful flowers and chocolate-dipped strawberries for Valentine’s Day this year. Makes me feel happy ๐ Oh, and thank you to Great Grandma Smith for Damien’s Valentine’s Day card. Damien really liked it and likes to talk to me about the dinosaur on the card lol.
Scott is spending the holidays with Damien and me in Virginia and so far it’s been great! Damien is pretty much attached to Scott’s hip ๐ and full of energy…even more than usual if you can believe it.
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
Day 5 – Christmas Morning!!
Below is a video of Damien opening most of his presents. He also got a train set (as seen in a picture below), some clothes, and a tablet but I’ll show pictures of his tablet at a later time.
For Christmas, Scott got an XBOX ONE and here is a video of Damien and Scott trying out one of the fitness games for the Kinect:
Merry Christmas everyone and Thank You to everyone who sent us something. Damien was very happy today and we still haven’t got to use all his new stuff yet.
Since Damien and I were on our own this year for Thanksgiving, I took us to a Thanksgiving buffet on Langley. I chose the earliest time which was 11oo so I could get Damien down for a nap at a decent time. There was only one other family at the buffet for the first 30-40 minutes, but it worked out well because the food was good (the desserts were EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD) and Damien got a good nap in afterwards.
I know it’s early, but since I have a 4-day weekend it felt like a great time to decorate the house for Christmas. Damien really loves the Christmas lights.
I know we’ve been asked a couple of times what Damien wants/needs for Christmas this year. He’s all set for clothes and he already has winter clothes, hats, and gloves. It’s hard to say what he likes because it’s always changing.
And I do have some really great news–Scott will be able to fly to Virginia to spend Christmas with us this year! I haven’t told Damien yet because I don’t need to hear about it for the next 3 weeks, but I’m very excited ๐
I took Damien Trick-or-Treating for the first time this Halloween. We just walked up and down our street, but he seemed to enjoy it. The temperature was over 70 degrees last night so we were a little warm which I wasn’t expecting.ย ย I may have mentioned before that Damien was initially scared of his dragon costume, but I’ve been working to slowly get him used to it for the past week so he is okay with wearing it now for short periods of time. He liked to stomp around and roar loudly, but I wasn’t really able to capture that in a video so I just posted one where I’m talking to him just trying to get him to act like he usually does…which is very vocal and active.
Friday evening there was a Fall Festival for all the base residents. I finally got to see the off-base housing area and it was REALLY nice and I’m actually pretty disappointed that I didn’t get a home over there instead. They had a petting zoo, a pumpkin patch, firefighters with their truck, a DJ, games, and free food! Damien didn’t want to touch the animals which was fine by me. He was actually way more excited about the pumpkin patch. I couldn’t get any pictures of him with the pumpkins because my hands were full. Damien was still afraid of the fire truck, but actually warmed up to it enough to sit inside of it for a minute. We didn’t stay for very long, but I thought it was a very nice event and a good way to start the weekend.